The internet would be a gloomy place without animators and illustrators like Daniel Savage. Across websites, online magazines, brand identities and basically images that look neat and that move, when Dan’s involved it means a smile is on the horizon. This Los Angeles-based graphic artist and self-taught animation director has the power to bring excellent executed brightness to whatever brief is presented to him. This may be why he so often illustrates lengthy tech editorial pieces, or adds his cartoonish but classic illustrations to aid scary tech companies into appearing more user-friendly. His wonderful monochrome 2016 animation Look-See brought him a lot of attention and allowed him to push himself in ways he had not yet done. “Creating my short film Look-See was a project that lead me to looking deeper and putting more of myself into the work,” he explains. “This also led to my first The New Yorker commission which was a pretty cool moment and definitely makes the title 'illustrator' feel official.”

Since then, a lot of Dan’s work has been inspired by or directly related to his other passion: music. “I studied drums and percussion all through high school and then went to college for it.” he explains. “Half way into freshmen year my interests started gravitating towards graphic design so I switched majors.” Since then, a lot of Dan’s work has been underpinned by a clear sense of rhythm. “The drumming is a big reason for the primitive look of my work,” says Dan. “The graphic design is where the geometry comes from I would say.”

MTV, Adult Swim, LACMA, The New Yorker, Al Jazeera, New York Times, Spotify, Outdoor Voices, MIT Technology Review, Vanity Fair, Dropbox, Google, Wired, Apple, Volvo, Samsung.

It’s Nice That: “Daniel Savage’s superbly executed animation about the late philosopher Marshall McLuhan” »